


Wasp Nest

by myotinae



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 03:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5770273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myotinae/pseuds/myotinae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A month after returning from the Deep Roads, Hawke shows off his new-ish digs, Anders starts a fight, and no one gets even a little bit laid (except hypothetically).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wasp Nest

The first thing Anders says when he steps into the old Amell estate is, “Holy knicker weasels,” which Hawke decides to take as approval.

“Carver’s not too thrilled we’re moving, but I think he’s just putting that on because he doesn’t want to act grateful to me and won’t get to reap the rewards, since, you know, he’s too busy being a twat. To be fair, I don’t think he quite understands that even if he _stops_ being a templar twat, we still get separate bedrooms.”

Normally that would be the cue for the typical will-we-or-won’t-we low-stakes flirting, flattering and fun for all even if the lead-up did involve talking about an obnoxious kid brother, but Anders just rocks on his heels, gaping up at the stairway. “You could house half of Ferelden in here. The whole Circle. Andraste, it’s got to be bigger than Fenris’s place! You could just move him in and you probably wouldn’t even notice the smell.” There’s a hint of laughter to his voice, but it’s not entirely pleasant.

“Hopefully Mother won’t start saying that about our uncle.” Hawke runs a hand across his beard. “Are you… I thought you said you were pleased for us.”

Anders looks at him. Hawke can see the muscle in his jaw tense for a moment, before he smiles and says, “Of course I bloody am. I’d rather visit you here than that Lowtown shack. Even your dog will have his own room!”

“It just seems like you’re a bit… not pleased,” says Hawke.

“What? I said nothing of the sort.”

“All right.”

“I’m just used to my only associate in Hightown being a violent elf who hates us both on principle, you know how it is.”

Hawke doesn’t laugh. “Right.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to read into this. Heaven forbid I just be glad you’re moving up in the world. Was I meant to be on my knees, going, ‘ _Oh, Hawke, these echos and cobwebs are such a turn-on, take me now,’_ the moment I walked in the door or something?”

And this needs to disarmed _right_ bloody quick.“Well,” Hawke tries, “I can’t say I would have minded—”

“I was kind of getting the impression that you liked it better when people could see how _suave_ you were being. Call all your friends round before you bat your eyes and then go kill something and head back to the tavern? But, no, that’s unfair, you really need to kill something _before_ —”

“Anders, _what the hell—”_

“Just need to make sure Anders is on board, right, make sure he thinks he’ll get something out of it, Anders needs to be dragged through the bloody Deep Roads again so you’ve got some good tainted blood on hand just in case something goes tits-up!”

Hawke isn’t sure what’s happened, what’s set this off or which accusations to parry, so he just blurts out, “You didn’t have to come, you know, that was _your choice—_ ”

“You would have _died_ , Hawke!”

“I can take care of myself, you know,” Hawke snaps. “I asked you to come as my friend, if you had all these fucking problems maybe you should have said something _then_ instead of a month after we came home with the spoils.” Then, as it occurs to him: “Is this about the money? All of this? Are you _jealous,_ now? We didn’t even know there _would_ be any coin, not for sure—”

“You could have died,” Anders repeats, and his voice and eyes are so hollow that Hawke feels his frustration deflate as quickly as it rose, and he bites back the rest of his argument. “You don’t get it. It doesn’t seem any different to you. All I get, all I remember about the darkspawn is that… that feeling, that taste, of drinking tainted blood: like everything bad in the world is crawling into you through your throat and it’ll never leave you. And I saw people who were full-on _ghouls_ just the next day—the Warden-Commander had me out with her because I could get on my feet and we were all that was left and the darkspawn were crawling up through the foundations… Getting the taint is like that moment I took that drink, unendingly, until you die or there’s nothing human left. I wasn’t going to let that happen to you; I’d as soon see both of us made Tranquil. It’s the same.” He pauses, and leans back against the staircase railing. “Except the Tranquil don’t eat people.”

“Be quite handy if they did, I suppose,” says Hawke softly.

“Oh yeah. ‘ _Oops, we just wanted to steal his free will and autonomy but he got the will to eat every templar in the place instead!_ ’ They’d never try that again. But I guess that’s why they kill us off when they can, anyway.”

Hawke wants to do—something. He doesn’t know what. Kiss him, or make him laugh, or tell him some mad shit about fighting the world that Hawke wishes he didn’t mean. Instead he sits on the stairs, the railing between them, and looks up at Anders’ too-lined face. Anders glances over at him, and smiles, a bit uncomfortably.

“Did I ever tell you, Hawke, about my Joining?”

“Not much, I don’t think.”

“That dwarf—the mad drunk one, I told you about _him_ , right? I think Varrick genuinely thought I was just being racist whenever I brought him up for a while—he took the goblet and downed it in one go and _belched_ , like it was nothing. Like, his eyes rolled back in his head and stuff, but I don’t think he noticed. It was incredible, in retrospect. So then I just thought, _‘Oh, all that stuff about it being horrible was just exaggeration, the wardens just want to sound tough and exclusive’_ … and then, well.” He waves his hand dismissively. “I keeled over, apparently. Kept waking up in the night screaming, not knowing where I was. Not that I really _did_ know where I was. It’d been a busy few days. But then the next morning they told me the other girl, this really keen one who’d been working for the wardens for, like, a month, had wings on her helmet and everything; she’d just _died_. Seized up in a fit and then died.”

“Bloody hell,” says Hawke, and wraps his hand around Anders’ through the bannister.

“Yeah,” says Anders, looking down at him, and squeezes back.

After a tactful silence, Hawke says, “Do you really mind that I flirt with you in front of other people?”

Anders barks out a laugh. “God, no. Don’t know why I said that. Makes me feel like a real spring chicken, that does. And it pisses Fenris right off.”

“It doesn’t!”

“It does! You need to check his face next time, it’s hilarious.”

“Bloody hell,” Hawke repeats, and leans his head against the railing. “Why do I ever bring the both of you anywhere together?”

“Why do you bring Isabela and Aveline anywhere together? Because we let you, I suppose. It’s… safe. Fun, even. I wouldn’t go to his place and he wouldn’t go to mine but it’s good when other people are there. Especially when it’s you.” Anders sits down on his side of the railing, and then says, “That might be my own bias, though. Aveline could be there for… me, for all I know.”

“Sometimes I think she’s genuinely there for Isabela,” says Hawke. “Honestly, if there’s anyone she needs to just get it over with…”

“She is a bit obsessed isn’t she? Straight as a whistle though, of course. In all senses. Although in my experience once you’ve been, ah—cooped up—for long enough, that doesn’t really matter.”

“Are we saying that the solution to Isabela and Aveline’s girl problems is we lock them in a tower until they shag? Wait—would you shag _Fenris_ if you were locked—”

“Don’t be disgusting!” says Anders, but he’s laughing, more lounging than sitting now.

“ _I’d_ shag Fenris if we were locked in a tower,” says Hawke resolutely.

“ _You’re_ a mad weirdo. He’d get overexcited and rip your heart out halfway through, you know. Would you…” Anders hums to himself, and then snaps his fingers. “That templar! The Knight-Captain, with the hair—”

 Hawke laughs. “Cullen? Oh, Andraste, would you?”

“I asked you first!” 

“Of course I bloody would, that’s why you’re asking!” says Hawke, and they dissolve into breathless schoolboy giggles together. “What about—”

“If you say Meredith I swear on my life I’ll bust a gut—”

And Hawke kisses Anders’ knuckles through the bannister and thinks, _Stay with me, stay with me. Like this. There’s nothing else I want but this._

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the lovely [cephied_variable](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Cephied_Variable) for talking me into posting this and (along with some patient twitter friends) metaphorically holding my hand while I wailed about how I haven't published fanfic since ye olden days of LiveJournal etc etc. Also, I don't have access to DA2 at the moment, so if any canon errors snuck through because of that I apologise! (Also also: for the record, I like Fenris _quite_ a lot more than Anders does.)


End file.
